


Speed Demon in the Machine

by WoozySloth



Category: Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Kingdom Hearts, Tron (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Fall of Radiant Garden (Kingdom Hearts), Gen, Heartless Attacks (Kingdom Hearts), Hollow Bastion | Radiant Garden, Mid-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24003094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WoozySloth/pseuds/WoozySloth
Summary: Sora picks up the *oddest* people.OrA Radiant Garden Speed Demon
Comments: 11
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't played the FFVII Remake, but I've watched videos and whatnot. Hopefully I keep true to the character, while putting on a bit of that Kingdom Hearts adaptational feel.

"Sora."

"Uh, hi Leon."

"Why?"

Sora looked at Donald, who snickered, predictably. Hoping against hope, he turned his eyes to Goofy, who gave him a sort of apologetic smile, and a little 'hyuck' of sympathy.

Traitors.

"Whyyy - ?"

" _Why_ do you have an unconscious teenager on your back?"

If Sora didn't know any better, he'd almost think Leon was amused by the whole situation. But as much as the man had loosened up since they'd met - and also since Leon had kicked his islander backside up and down Traverse Town's first district, he was vividly remembering - Sora wasn't about to put munny on it.

"He sort of - well. Tron said he belonged here."

 _That_ definitely didn't amuse Leon - whatever about Sora and his group's many misadventures, the implications of _that..._

"Meaning what, exactly?"

"Tron said he was a User. So, y'know, someone from this world. Or, uh, a non," here Sora waved his free hand, adequately summing up his complete bafflement with the technology he'd just been 'inside', "non-computer-y world, anyway. Actually, he kind of reminded me of Cloud..."

"Wak!" Donald looked up, incredulously.

"What, he did! Kinda like that 'Sephiroth' from the Coliseum, too..."

"Gawrsh Sora, I don' really see it..."

"I dunno. Um," here Sora finally put down his 'cargo', letting the other young man slump against the wall. He considered the features, now free of all the strange effects that the strange world they'd met in put on a person's appearance. "It's just a feeling. Like. Like something about the way he fights?"

Leon raised an eyebrow - he hadn't seen any weapons on the kid's person. He couldn't imagine Sora would leave someone without their possessions, normally. Or that this kid would still be unconscious if Sora and co. had been fighting _alongside_ this guy, come to think of it.

"How exactly did you three meet this...person?"

"Uh, well."

The moment Sora's hand went up to bashfully rub his spiked hair, with _that_ smile, Leon knew his headache was about to intensify.

* * *

They heard the laughter before they heard the roar of the - did these things have engines? This thing sounded like it did. The cycle that Sora, Donald and Goofy were currently straddling made a sort of constant whine, but the one behind them, because that was certainly what it was, _roared -_ if their friend the Beast had appeared behind them at that moment, they almost wouldn't have been surprised.

Instead, what came at them was a howling, joyous madman on a fiery red lightycle of his own, crushing the Heartless under his own vehicle as he came after them.

Unsure of what to do, they watched as this new figure - perhaps another program like Tron, here to help? - whirled and swung his sword around, laughing with delight.

"Eyes on the road!" Donald squawked at Sora, who suddenly had to swerve left to avoid crashing into the wall that appeared in front of them. They'd watched enough Heartless spattered against the walls of this 'game grid' that they knew to avoid it.

Not the case for this other player though, as suddenly he was ahead of them and _above_ them as well, riding on the wall that would have certainly 'derezzed' their own group.

Then the other cycle leapt off the wall, crashing down in front of them, and then - still moving - spinning around to face them.

The other driver was young, maybe Sora's age. Under the helmet that everybody in this world seemed to wear a variation of, he had long flowing hair that was somehow being blown about his head, despite the fact that there was no wind in the grid. Even as his machine reversed at great speeds, he seemed utterly at ease, one hand on the controls while the other rested a sizeable sword across his broad shoulders.

(Admittedly, their own view of what constituted a 'sizeable' sword was maybe a little skewed by their adventures. By some metrics, this guy was toting around a toothpick.)

He also seemed really, exceedingly pleased to be there.

"Well, hello! Mind if I cut in?"

"Whoa, hey. Thanks for - whoa!"

"Wak!"

Suddenly Sora's keyblade was blocking the stranger's sword. From the rear of the lightcycle where he'd been keeping guard, Goofy flailed, but then immediately brought his shield around to strike at the stranger's head, missing narrowly as their attacker ducked and retreated.

"Splendid! I've been looking for a new dance partner! Though I would have preferred a more _intimate_ arrangement."

"Inti-what? Who are you?"

"Too quick for the eye, you cross him, you die!"

Suddenly a wall sprang up, but the stranger turned the cycle, still in reverse, without making any sign on his face that anything had happened. As Sora made his own desperate turn to avoid smashing them all into pieces, he made the conclusion that yes, this new player was bad news.

Then a wave of energy, then two, then three, then four came rushing at them from the sword of the stranger.

"What's the big idea?" Donald shrieked, magically countering the blasts with his own shield of light, then sending chunks of ice hurtling at their foe, who deftly dodged them.

"The duckie's curiosity has been piqued! My name is Roche, but you may address me by the more accurate appellation," and here Roche's wide, glowing eyes gleamed with satisfaction, " _Speed Demon!"_

Squawking with indignation, Donald fired bolts of lightning and shards of ice from his perch in between his two friends.

The game was on.

* * *

"You're not exactly filling me with confidence about this guy, Sora."

"Well...you attacked _me_ , the first time we met!"

Leon had the decency to look a little embarrassed about that. Or maybe he was annoyed. It was kind of hard to tell with him.

"That was different. A necessary - "

"Yeah, it still hurt, Leon." Sora huffed. It was maybe a bit unfair of him - Leon had only been trying to help him out and hide him from the Heartless. But it didn't change the fact that he'd taken a huge sword/gun to the head, in the middle of a strange new world, a few hours after he'd lost his home.

"So are you telling me there's a good reason for what the 'Speed Demon' was doing? Some plan to escape this game grid you were in?"

"Well..."

* * *

"Come on! Let's push it past the redline!"

"Donald?"

A shake of a feathered head - no magic. This lunatic hadn't quite managed to dodge everything that had been thrown at him, but he could dodge the bulk of most attacks - whoever this 'Speed Demon' was, he was basically one with his lightcycle. A fact he'd laugh-screamed at them a few times during their running battle.

At least he seemed determined to keep things pretty even - Roche disdained using the disc on his back for distance attacks, using either a blast of lightning or an energy wave from his sword instead. Comforting, considering he'd bounced that disc between any number of Heartless and the walls in an attack that would have made Goofy proud. He also destroyed any Heartless that came at them, crushing them under his wheels almost as an afterthought.

Sora tried to keep that in mind as a large, tank-like Heartless sighted him, because he wasn't sure he could dodge this one, and a Reflect spell might be a tall order at this stage.

The massive ball of energy came hurtling at them, slow enough to spot, but too quick to react in any meaningful way. 

Unless you were Roche, of course.

The Speed Demon came hurtling at them, lightcycle and all, end over end with his sword drawn. Just as the blast was about to hit, he tilted wildly to one side, lending all the power of his ridiculous spin to his arm in a blow that batted the attack away, and into the wall, where it made a sizeable hole.

A hole big enough to ride through. They turned, barrelling down the path to freedom.

"Leaving so soon?" Roche cried, skidding in front of them.

For some reason he couldn't quite grasp, Sora smiled, readying his own weapon.

"I've got another party to get to!"

* * *

"..."

"What?"

"..."

"Gawrsh, Leon, Sora was just bein' friendly."

"Yeah!"

Donald muttered something under his breath, and Leon raised an eyebrow.

"Right," he said, finally, "friendly. So you knocked him out and then..." three shaking heads almost made Leon sigh, "so this Roche couldn't follow you?"

"Nope! We ended up back with Tron, and he went somewhere else, a-hyuck! Tron said it was cause Rochey there came in through a different terminator."

"Terminal," Donald grumbled.

"Right! The terminus!"

Leon nodded, having - unlike the three in front of him - some idea of what that actually meant.

"So when _did_ you end up carrying him around?"

Sora chuckled, which was clearly a bad sign. "Well..." he began.

Leon wondered, as he had almost every moment since meeting them, how it was he still had all his hair with these three around.

* * *

"I'M DISAPPOINTED IN YOU, PROGRAM."

The booming voice of the program that Tron had called the 'MCP' seemed to come from all around them, making their group take their eyes off the floating...was it a Heartless, or some sort of computer thing? It was a distracting voice, that was the point. It also seemed, somehow, like it was on the verge of saying something else, but then - 

"And *I'm* disappointed in *you*!"

Where the Hostile Program had floated almost serenely down from, Roche came screaming in like a meteor, crashing his bike into the creature and sending orbs of data everywhere as it staggered under his the force of his dynamic entry. Not content to leave it at that, Roche stabbed his blade down into his new platform as well, rending a large gash that spewed forth even more of the data.

"Keeping all the best toys away from me!" Roche mock-wailed, but the manic grin on his face spoke to the joy he was feeling.

It actually seemed like he'd flummoxed the tyrannical program, because the MCP took a moment to respond.

"...YOU HAVE BEEN PROVIDED WITH LIMITLESS ENTERTAINMENT. RACING, GLADIATORIAL GAMES, TESTS OF SKILL -"

"And it's gotten _boring!_ Stale! But then this," and here Roche indicated Sora, somehow keeping track of him while the Hostile Program bucked and wheeled wildly in the air, " _incredible_ young warrior comes along, and you keep him from me! You took out all of Tron's best features, anything that made him a challenge. You're _stifling_ me big man! I'm putting an end to our relationship - time for an upgrade!"

With that, Roche leapt off the Program, a trail of data clusters in his wake, and landed in front of Sora's party, saluting them with his sword like they were in a fencing match.

"You know what I want," he said, glowing eyes fixed firmly on Sora. 

"Uh. I do?"

"A second dance," Roche almost whispered, "just the two of us."

As one, Sora, Donald, Goofy and Tron looked over Roche's shoulder.

Eyebrows furrowing, Roche turned to see what they were looking at, just in time to catch the Hostile Program reorienting itself in the air, ready to attack.

"Oh, right," Roche sniffed, "this first, I guess."

* * *

"..."

"...seriously, Leon - "

"You brought this person into Hollow Bastion. This guy?"

"Well, we couldn't leave him with Tron! There's enough trouble going on there!"

Leon put a hand to his forehead, deciding then and there he would rather deal with this whole thing later. Besides, they'd gotten far enough off track already, and he could imagine the rest of the story well enough - they beat the program, then beat this Roche character, and so on. If he wanted the details, he could get them later.

"Alright. We'll deal with him later. Where do we start with the system?"

In the chaos of everything that happened next, Leon figured the kid was as safe in the computer room as anywhere else, especially as it seemed that the Heartless were somehow wary of Ansem's study. If they let the Heartless overrun the place, then there weren't going to be any safe places, so moving the kid was doubly pointless. So he scribbled a note about how there were approximately _all of the Heartless_ outside, locked the doors behind him and tried not to think about it.

There was a battle to win.

Besides, whatever they'd done to keep him out for the count seemed to be holding. Even if the kid woke up, however Sora and co had described him, surely he would see the sense in staying inside and _not_ wading out into the chaotic hordes of darkness.

...

Right?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Misadventures of Roche, Immersive Gamer Extraordinaire, continue. Starring Cid Highwind as the Combative Curmudgeon.

The last time the Heartless had overrun this world, Cid had been one of the most experienced combatants still around - Ansem's apprentices had disappeared, the group that were on the front lines today were just kids then, and the less said about Sephiroth the better. That wasn't saying _much_ , mind. Back then, he'd been closer to a hobbyist with his spear than any kind of 'dragoon'. Similar situation to now, really - Leon, Yuffie and Aerith had taken over the physical parts of town security pretty quickly, both in Traverse Town and in their new/old home, letting him focus on the more cerebral aspect of things.

But the program ran itself, that was the point of it. Merlin had the townspeople in hand - or in his bag, actually. Which was...weird. Magic.

So Cid armed himself and set about skewering Heartless. He wasn't young anymore, so he had to be smart about it - letting the defence system send enemies flailing into the air so he could jump up after them.

And above them, coming down like a meteor to stick them to the ground with his spear. Cid had to admit it was a bit of a relief to find out that yes, he _could_ still do that, even if it was now significantly harder on his knees than it used to be.

Aerial enemies were a bit of a problem though, he was reminded as he was forced to leap around like a monkey to get away from a trio of floating, fiery...mines? They were like fireballs, but didn't seem to want to hit him so much as explode near him. Which, yes, Cid could definitively say he wasn't a big fan of the idea, and it wouldn't be good for him at all, but surely it would be more effective to actually try to make some kind of contact with him.

Rebounding off a rooftop, he came down with his spear beneath him, aiming its point in between the main body and the 'hat' of the mine-setting Heartless, when he suddenly found himself picked up by a gust of wind.

Well, 'gust' was maybe underselling it. Cid was hurled across several rooftops, and oh, he was going to need a lot of healing for this one. Seriously, he already hated the Heartless for plunging his home into darkness, but his _back_ too? Was nothing sacred?

Groaning, he was sorely tempted not to open his eyes, because he knew what he'd find. He had let go of his spear somewhere around the second roof he'd bounced off of, so even if he could struggle to his feet - yeah. Maybe Sora would find some way to de-Heartless-ize him - kid was always doing stuff like that. Heck, a little bit of time as a Heartless and...Nobody, that was the other thing, might even be interesting. Something to tell...well, not his grandkids. Maybe those annoying duck boys. They'd probably pester him about it anyway.

Cid could sense them closing in. He looked, despite himself. Knights, walking over on their ridiculous pin legs.

"If you boys could hurry it up there," he mumbled, "I'd be much obliged. Haven't got all day."

Satisfied he was going to go out on a sufficiently dry note, Cid fished around in his pocket for a toothpick - had he swallowed the previous one? At least he didn't have to worry about the repercussions of that...unless when ('if', big 'if', Highwind) he got his Heart back, the toothpick would show back up too. Shame he couldn't ask Kairi about the whole thing. Or Sora, for that matter. Good kids. 

Sighing, content that the world was in good hands even if he never came back, Cid Highwind braced himself for the end.

"AHHH HAHAHA AHAHA!"

...couldn't he even cease to exist in peace?

Next thing he knew, there was some kid in the middle of everything, laughing like a lunatic and whirling his sword around and through the Knights that had come to take Cid's Heart. It might have been the pain affecting his vision, but Cid swore the kid was a blur, only that oddly familiar laugh giving away his age, the whip of his long hair obscuring his face.

Eventually, the kid came to a stop, though he was bouncing in place like someone much younger, practically vibrating with energy.

"Just the man I was looking for!"

Oh. _This_ guy.

Suddenly, Cid found himself hauled up, aching back and all, by one of his biggest fans.

Then the kid hugs him, which aside from making a cracking sound that Cid is pretty sure shouldn't be as loud as it is, is deeply uncomfortable. 

"Get offa me, ya lunatic!"

To his credit, Roche does as he's asked, and Cid is left staring at a face that hasn't changed, set in a grin that was just as manic and borderline terrifying as he remembered.

"Oh venerable elder!" Roche begins, and if he weren't injured Cid would smack that pompadour into the stratosphere. Elder? "I require your noblest steed!"

It takes him a second to parse what the kid means - they haven't spoken since before the world fell, for all that the kid seems to have skipped all the years in between.

"You - ya disappear for a decade, track me down in the middle a' the biggest Heartless invasion we've seen since the world ended, which you _missed_ , kill a buncha Heartless, save my life, and you - all because you want a _motorcyle?_ "

Roche nods, and Cid is pretty sure he's missed everything but the word 'motorcycle', like a younger kid might zoom in on the word 'puppy' or 'pony'.

In truth, Cid almost isn't surprised - Roche had pestered him for years about everything mechanical, then later everything digital _and_ mechanical, all with flowery words and terms like 'apprentice' and 'sage' and 'technically legal modifications'. For all he'd grumbled, Cid had kind of liked the attention, and he'd mourned the kid when the world fell. If the circumstances weren't so mindbogglingly weird, he might have cracked a smile to find the guy alive and evidently well.

"Kid, I ain't exactly had the time to set up a new garage here."

Roche gasped, horrified.

"Sir Highwind!" He utters, distraught. "Have you abandoned your craft? Your enviable calling, your talent from on high? If not the pursuit of mechanical perfection, then what? What could possibly be left?"

"That." Cid points, indicating a Watcher Heartless getting blasted into the air by the security system.

"Ooooh." 

"Ayup."

"I am impressed, Sir Highwind. But also full of woe," Roche put the back of his hand against that ridiculously poofy bit of hair, "for without a suitable mount, how can I face my newest brother-in-arms, my goal, my fated rival?"

"Uhh," Cid had no idea how to deal with any of that, but something else was nagging at him, "where'd you get that sword, kid?"

Briefly distracted, Roche brandishes the blade, holding it up to let the light catch it. If Cid didn't know him better, he'd say Roche was admiring his own reflection, but no - the kid was just that in love with the sword.

"A beauty, isn't she? As Fair a blade as one could ask for."

Something about the way Roche says 'Fair' is rubbing up against the sword's appearance in Cid's brain, trying to spark some long-forgotten memory. He almost has it...for some reason he wants to ask Cloud, but that doesn't make sense. Even if he got a hold of him, Strife's memory is incredibly unreliable.

Then Roche gasps and points, and for a second Cid forgets he's not talking to a normal person who gasps at what a normal person would gasp at, and he whirls, expecting to find a group of Heartless approaching them.

"Sir Highwind," the boy says reverently, "do mine eyes deceive me?"

Furrowing his brows, Cid scans the area, briefly believing that somehow the boy's sheer presence has summoned some gigantic beast of a motorcycle out of nothing. He can't see it at first, but then he realises Roche's finger is angled slightly downwards, and he follows it to the ground, where he finds...

"Kid," Cid growls, and wishes desperately he had something stronger than toothpicks to fall back on, "you might be even stranger than I remember."

Roche somehow managed to grin even wider.

Because of course he would.

"To the road!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actually more *and* less Cid than I planned here - I was originally going to show off his mad fighting skillz more, but then he started complaining about his joints. On the other hand, I sort of planned for this section to only be a third of a chapter, but again, reached what I felt was a natural end point. So Cid remains the sole viewpoint character here. Go Sir Highwind! I thought Roche would naturally gravitate towards a technically minded man who would presumably be more accessible than the literal ruler of the world, hence his admiration.
> 
> I don't know why I keep offhandedly mentioning Sephiroth, but it's starting to inform my headcanon for what the 'real' Sephiroth would be like in this setting, as opposed to Cloud's Darkness Personified that we see in the games. Might do something with that.
> 
> My 'Fall of Radiant Garden' tag is really just about these little references to the past rather than any coverage, cause this is a Roche story, and he managed to miss the whole thing.
> 
> Guh, tense consistency really messed me up this chapter, so I've edited it about twenty times since posting today. I *teach*, for god's sake.


	3. Chapter 3

"Silence, traitor."

They were taken aback, of course. They knew the Nobodies didn't have any Hearts, but to see this harmless kook suddenly transform like that...his sea-green eyes were cold narrowed in concentration, and it was clear he'd resolved himself then and there to fight them.

Lifting his hand, Demyx began to gather water just above his palm, ready to take shape as his seemingly harmless instrument.

The water was just coalescing into an orb when they heard it. Confused, Demyx tilted his head to try and look at where the sound was coming from, the water he was manipulating stopping mid-flow. Even though it was dirty, any one of them (well, maybe not Goofy...almost definitely Donald) might have taken the opportunity to strike while their opponent was so clearly off-guard. Might have, if not for that _sound._

The sound of joyous, manic, obnoxious laughter.

It was desperately unwise when there was an enemy right there (even if he was kind of a dork), but Sora found himself turning around to look.

There was a clear path through the bailey They'd taken it themselves - it was a sort of gentle slope, which had unfortunately been home to a great number of 'Dancer' Nobodies. If it hadn't been for that last factor, you could have called it a nice stroll.

That was not, of course, the path that Roche was taking.

Roche was skateboarding straight down the side of the castle.

How he was doing it, exactly, Sora didn't know - somewhere inside, there was a very insistent part of him that had woken up just to complain (loudly) that skateboards did _not_ work that way. But there Roche was, mocking gravity harder than any magic spell could.

Just before he would crash into the ground, Roche flipped the skateboard up, then kicked his heel into the back of it, sending it spinning into the sky. Its rider followed soon after, feet planting onto it once again, victoriously spinning in what seemed to be slow motion to everyone below, because they really shouldn't have been able to see so much of his hair whipping around so clearly. Then he kicked off of it again, and the skateboard went hurtling downwards, finally handed off to the forces of gravity.

Roche came down just in front of their party, landing with legs straight and transitioning straight into a showman's bow. He paused - for his part, Sora actually felt his hands start to move together as if to clap, just before he stopped himself.

"Ow!"

The skateboard went sailing into Demyx's nose at great speed. Roche's head came up just as the orb of water their opponent was preparing dissolved and came splashing down on its creator.

_"Oh, come on!"_

"Mind if I crash the party?"

"Uhhh," with all the great variety of people Sora had talked to across a multitude of worlds, he really didn't know how to deal with this, "Roche?"

Roche gasped, putting a hand to his chest.

"You remembered my name!"

_"Is it broken? Can my nose still break? I - hssss!"_

"Um, yeah. Look, we're kind of -"

_"Ah, it's not broken, but ugh, still, ahhhh."_

" - in the middle of something."

Roche actually tutted.

"No no no, my friend. You turned the key - now the engine roars with excitement!"

"Wait, where did you get that sword?"

_"How am I wet? It's *my* water, I absorb water."_

"It hungers to be set free!"

_"Shouldn't I be like, a sponge? Ugh, my nose..."_

Donald looked at him, eyebrow cocked. Goofy scratched his head, giving him a similar sort of look.

Why was this _his_ fault?

"Look, Roche, um. You're nice and all." This felt weird. "But I've got a lot going on at the moment. It's just not right for me, right now." This felt super weird. 

_"Seriously, what is my powerset? I can control water, but I can't stop it from getting in my boots? Ugh."_

Roche shook his head. "After you curtailed our last engagement?"

"Uh, well," Sora scratched his head, "I get that you might be mad about that..."

* * *

_Roche faced him, sword at the ready, seemingly completely unbothered by the fact that he'd taken his fair share of laser beams to the face in their battle with the Hostile Program._

_"Shall we dance?"  
_

_"Seriously?"_

_"I never joke about such things," Roche said, an impish smirk on his face despite his words._

_He began to bounce in place, the lines of light on his suit seeming to pulse with his evident excitement._

_"Look, Roche - "_

_"Enough talk. I knew you for a warrior when I first laid eyes on you," here Roche put one hand on his chest while the other held his blade in the air, "let us give voice to our feelings with the clanging of steel!"_

_Sora turned to his companions for support. Donald shrugged. Goofy seemed to be contemplating whether you could call the Keyblade 'steel', or indeed whether any digitised weapon was still technically made of the materials it was in their own dimension. Tron..._

_Where was Tron?_

_"Hrk! Zzzzt -gak!"_

_There was a thump._

_Sora and co turned to find Roche on the floor, smoke trailing from what Tron had called the 'identity disc', and Tron himself standing over the prone warrior._

_He met their stares with a deadpan expression._

_"It's wrong to disrespect a User, but I have waited. So many cycles. To do that."_

* * *

Roche sniffed, still clearly affronted.

"After all our games together...clearly he was jealous that I'd found a new rival."

"Aww, get out of our way ya big palooka!"

"See now, Mister Roche, we got ourselves a Nobody to fight instead a' you."

"Yeah!" Sora chimed in. "We've really gotta fight _this_ guy, then a whole load of Heartless to help here, and then maybe we can fight you?"

"You mean the well-coiffed, black coated, somewhat damp gentleman you were about to engage in combat?"

The three nodded as one.

"He's gone," Roche stated, pointing to the empty space where Demyx had been.

A wind blew through the canyon.

* * *

Demyx surfed a wave of conjured water, rapidly preparing himself a door to a world far, far away from all this.

Whatever about the Superior, or the Organisation, or the existential torment that was his non-existence, that skateboard to the face had given Demyx an epiphany that could be boiled down thusly:

He wanted _no part_ of _any of this nonsense._

* * *

"He fled while you were having a flashback. Now - "

"Hey, hold on!"

"It's been a while since I last fought a duel out of the server," Roche crouched, readying himself, and Sora summoned his Keyblade, "but...for all the time on the file."

Roche _moved._

There was a spark, a clang, an impact he could feel travelling down his weapon and into his arms, and then Roche was behind him.

"I'm just as fast as I ever was!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, like one more chapter after this.  
> I was going to devote more time to Demyx's thought process here, but really...can you blame the guy?  
> Okay, maybe *one* more chapter...


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roche gets his long-awaited duel...with some caveats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woof, writing action. Ish. Okay.

Roche's swordsmanship was excellent. He was fast, and strong, and just really, really _good._

Sora was probably not quite as skilled with a blade, in terms of pure technique.

It didn't matter that much.

The first reason was that, whatever about technique, Sora was just a better _fighter_. 

That much became apparent when Roche tried for another blow, and found his opponent spinning to meet him with a blow that could fell a mountain, then moving back and twisting mid-air after being parried (if you could call it a 'parry' when the parrying party was forced to one knee) to go in for another blow, then Sora was suddenly behind him, and surrounded by a ring of fire. Roche retreated, and this was one ability that served him well, this dashing forward and back in the blink of an eye.

It was a shame for him that his opponents had faced a few variations of that particular move before.

Which brought up the second reason.

Roche had wanted a one-on-one, mano-a-mano duel.

None of the other people in this makeshift arena were in the mood to humour that.

So when Roche next dashed forward with his blade outstretched, he found himself going quite a bit further than he intended.

As in, not only did Sora dodge his blow, which he'd somewhat expected - although who _rolled_ out of the way of an attack - Roche found himself unable to stop, and found himself slamming into the cliff-side at speed. The impact sent judders up his arm, although he was a little gratified that he was strong enough to cause a small avalanche, rocks tumbling down around him as he wrenched his sword out of the stone.

Curious, he inspected the ground, finding that yes, he'd clearly dashed through a patch of ice that had sprung up as he'd attacked, thus sending him sailing.

The unusual snickering he was hearing provided yet further clues.

Glaring at the foul fowl mage, Roche protested.

"Excuse me, but this is a private party."

"Uh uh," Donald replied, "we don't have time for that! So why don't ya just give it a rest already?"

"That's right," Goofy chimed in, lowering his shield arm from where it had blocked a solid chunk of cliff from his head, "you cain't beat us all, and we ain't leavin' Sora, and uh -" here he seemed to lose his train of thought.

"People are in danger, Roche," Sora said.

"My _evening_ is in danger!" Roche responded. He rolled his shoulders, then shrugged. "Oh well. The more the merrier!"

Roche blazed forward, made invisible by his sheer speed. Magic from the sidelines would muddy the waters of this fight, so he'd remove the possibility. 

Unfortunately, while a sound enough tactical move, there were a few things he failed to take into consideration about his own technique. Despite the speed of it, it did take a moment to focus and gather the energy for the move. That, and you wanted to be facing your target before you started. If your opponent knew to to watch for these tells, it was easy to see where you would go.

So Roche found that instead of an undignified squawking and the fluttering of feathers, the clang of metal on metal was what his attack produced. Goofy hadn't even moved back a step from blocking him.

A glint in Goofy's goggles told Roche there was a Keyblade coming for his head from behind - naturally, he ducked. The Keyblade sailed by just in front of Goofy's face, and either that or Roche pushing off of his shield to prepare another attack caused him to flail backwards. Well, seemingly he was 'flailing' in just about every direction one could flail - the tangle of arms in the air was impossible to decipher.

Roche took what he thought was an opportunity, aiming a slice upwards.

Only he ended taking a Keyblade to the back, which hurt a lot more than a gigantic key rightfully should, while all of Goofy's flailing translated into a really unfairly good dodge, then a spinning shield-backhand that clipped him on the ear even as he escaped his inadvisable spot between these two unlikely titans of combat.

Roche jumped back again, and again, stopping to catch his breath and prepare another assault, bracing his foot against the pillar behind him, ready to launch.

He was promptly struck by lightning.

Roche was not a person who lived with regrets. But this was getting slightly ridiculous.

Blowing a singed hair out of his eyes, Roche watched his opponents approach (had the duck set himself _on fire?_ Respect.). The results of the little avalanche he'd caused earlier sparked an idea.

Rather than dash forward to meet them head-on, Roche angled himself to face the cliff wall, and blitzed towards the rock face, missing his three attackers entirely.

Or at least, not hitting them with his sword.

Dragging the blade through the cliff at blinding speeds and with all his strength, the already unstable rock began to splinter and fall from above.

Turning as he stopped, Roche ripped his sword out and spun back around to hit the rock yet again, sending yet more boulders down into the area.

The effect was better than he could have hoped, as the cohesive group that had put him on the back-foot were suddenly scrambling in every direction.

More importantly, in _different_ directions.

With everything else obscured by dust and rubble, Roche could finally focus on the one person that mattered. Sora moved about in the midst of all the chaos, coughing and trying to catch sight of his friends. Roche came in with a sideways slash, only for Sora to not only somehow sense the move coming, but jump a truly ridiculous distance into the air, then coming down with a heavy blow that cracked the floor where Roche had been.

Roche circled around and came at Sora from the other side, only to find that as fast as he had closed in, Sora had whipped round to block him, then counter with a strike that Roche met with his own. Blade and Keyblade clashed and sparked as they met, pushing against one another.

As overjoyed as he was to be involved in a real, honest-to-goodness _blade lock,_ Roche could sense that he would be overpowered in moments if he kept at it - where, he wondered with delight, did all this power come from? Roche savoured this delicious moment where weapons and eyes met in combat, then pulled his blade back to strike again, finding the blow parried once more. He repeated, disengaging only to come back in the same instant. Slash. Parry. Thrust. Parry. Slash. Lock. Over and over again, until their weapons were metallic blurs between them, anything distinct lost in the frenzied flurry of blows meeting one another.

* * *

Goofy watched the two boys stare intently at each other as they did...something combative between themselves. It was honestly kind of hard to tell, and he really couldn't figure out how either of them was keeping up with what they were doing, what with the blurring and the flying sparks and the fact that they didn't seem to be looking at where their swords were going.

But it was pretty apparent that Roche really didn't have eyes for anyone other than Sora.

Slowly, Goofy started to creep towards the two.

As he was 'sneaking', he heard a cough. Turning, he saw Donald, looking pretty peeved, sitting amongst some rubble.

The duck, who clearly hadn't enjoyed the rockfall they'd just been caught up in - and didn't _that_ bring up unpleasant memories of the Underworld (and Agrabah. And...rocks just kept on falling on them, huh?) - raised an eyebrow. Which prompted Goofy, not for the first time, to ponder whether his friend actually had eyebrows. Well, there was clearly something going on there, because Goofy could actually see Donald making a motion with his face and think 'Donald's raising an eyebrow'. But the eyebrow(or not) in question was the same colour and consistency as the rest of Donald's face, in that it was just more feathers. Could it really be called an eyebrow if it wasn't distinct from the rest of him? Maybe it was more about the shape of it all, but then - 

Goofy heard a strangled sort of sound he was unfortunately very familiar with, and looked up to see Donald vibrating with rage, lightning sparking round his hands, clearly struggling not to blow something - possibly Goofy himself - to Kingdom Hearts. There was the distinct sense, somehow, that he knew exactly what inane thing Goofy had been wondering about in the middle of what was ostensibly a pitched battle.

Chuckling sheepishly, Goofy pointed at Roche and Sora, who were still somehow doing this blade-thing. He mimed sneaking up on Roche with two of his fingers 'walking' daintily across his hand.

Visibly calming himself, Donald was eventually composed enough to nod, then made a fist and smashed it into the palm of his other hand.

Goofy stared at him for a bit, then repeated the fist-into-palm motion with an air of confusion.

Running one hand down his face, Donald pointed at Goofy's shield, then he pointed at Roche, then he mimed 'smashing' again.

Goofy looked between his shield, then Donald, then his shield, then Roche, then Donald again.

Then he nodded.

He resumed sneaking. There were sparks everywhere, and the boys had even worked up some pretty impressive gusts of wind with all the sword-waving. It was no wonder they couldn't hear him. Still, he was kind of surprised that neither of them seemed to notice him, as he got closer, and closer, and eventually he found himself standing right behind Roche with absolutely no change from either combatant. Well, they were still moving their hands and such, but it was like Goofy himself wasn't there. He poked himself, just to make sure he hadn't gotten hit with some intangibility spell or some such.

Behind him, Donald coughed meaningfully.

Goofy looked at Donald, then back at Roche. It really didn't seem fair, but....well. They really did need to be moving on.

Goofy raised his arm, and brought his shield crashing down onto Roche's head with all his might.

"Sorry!"  
  
There was a mighty sound, like the ringing of a bell.

Roche stiffened up as the shock seemed to travel from the top of his and down to his toes. His grip had disappeared mid-swing, and Sora sent his sword flying to the side at incredible speed. 

There was a second in which Roche remained standing, absolutely and completely still.

Then he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

Sora sighed, seeming more exasperated than actually tired. Then he started at something over Goofy's shoulder, prompting a look round to see...

Roche's admittedly kind-of-large sword was buried halfway to the hilt in a rock that Donald had been resting his head against, just by the duck's face. Both blade and duck were quivering something fierce.

Sora and Goofy spoke almost simultaneously.

"Sorry Donald!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....I think there's more. Every time I think, "Oh, surely just one more chapter will finish it!", then there's more. I realise it's onyl four chapters so far, but I legitimately don't often write this much (having been delayed in this chapter by writing a script in my real life), and I thought I'd wrap this thing up in like, a chapter, singular.
> 
> Will it ever end?


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loyalty is a funny thing

Roche woke up to a green mist floating around him, which wasn't an altogether unfamiliar experience. In the idyllic, peaceful, _boring_ world he'd been born into, Cure magic existed almost solely for the benefit of reckless young people like him. Well, almost like him. It would be fair to say that no one in the world now known as Hollow Bastion could have predicted anything like Roche would come from their corner of the Universe.

He was also used to the exasperated expressions that were now facing him - not that he really registered them as such. Normally, it wouldn't have stopped him. Still, he was prone on the ground and surrounded...actually, had someone else joined them? 

Was that a _giant mouse_?

Did the mouse have another outsized key weapon?

Magnificent.

"Look," the other boy - the other warrior - began. "Roche? We weren't gonna just leave you here."

"Says you," grumbled the duck.

"But we can't fight you right now, okay? There's something huge going on."

"Two warriors in the prime of their lives duelling on top of a mountain?" Roche countered, beaming. "What could be bigger than that?"

Sora held out a hand to pull him up. Delighted with this show of sportsmanship, Roche naturally took it, and let himself be led to the cliff-side, to look down over the edge and into...

Oh. 

Oh, wow.

* * *

Sora had expected the silence. Well, more *hoped* for it, really. It was refreshing to note that, underneath his...everything, that Roche could actually be affected by something in the way a normal person would be.

The teeming mass of Heartless writhing and fighting below was enough to shut anyone up, it seemed.

"So look, we have to deal with all of...that. Okay? So we don't have time to duel you, or anything. So can we just go now?"

No response.

Sora looked back at Donald and Goofy for help - the King had spoken a few words to them, then promptly disappeared, because that was kind of his thing. At least they knew where they'd find him - in the midst of a thousand or so Heartless, where they were going to be soon. Hurrah.

Donald was impatient to get after the King, of course. He was tapping his foot and everything, so fast he might have been trying to wear the mountain to a level where they could get going already. Goofy looked uncharacteristically anxious about the whole thing as well, which made sense. Their friends were all fighting the hordes of darkness, and here they were trying to convince someone who had been swinging a sword at their heads to, well, stop doing that while they were trying to fight the hordes of darkness. But Roche was a person, with a Heart and everything - it would have been wrong to leave him up here. And it would have been stupid to not make sure he wasn't going to try and attack them while they were in the middle of an army of Heartless, because that seemed pretty in-character from what they'd seen so far.

"Hey, I know!" Goofy said. "Maybe Roche can help us with all the Heartless."

Donald glared at him, which Sora supposed was kind of fair. The guy could have killed any one of them. But then hey, same with Riku, right? And Cloud. And Leon, for all Sora had known when they met. And the Beast. 

...this was a disturbing train of thought.

Before he could get back on to considering Roche as a potential ally, or thinking about how many of his friends had almost wasted him, Sora felt a hand on his shoulder. It wasn't the firm clasp he might have expected, but a tentative sort of touch, almost the way a child might get his attention - if the child in question was a whole head taller than him. Seriously, couldn't he have had just a _slightly_ more dramatic growth spurt?

Sora turned to meet Roche's eyes and could have sworn they were actually _glowing_ with excitement.

"Please?"

Sora could hear Donald sigh even as he did it himself.

"Yeah, okay. Let's go."

He had to stop meeting people like this.

* * *

This. Was. _Amazing._

They hadn't even gotten into the valley yet, that was the best bit. They were on their way _to_ the big fight, and already they'd fought dozens of these Heartless things, together, and with...oh, the people they were with.

Especially the guy with the sword. The big one. The big sword.

"Cloud!"

The name alone sparked something in Roche, though not as much as how the man reacted to the warning - whipping around to face the giant, armoured creature that had materialised behind him, the beautiful slab of metal he called a weapon flowing with him like it weighed nothing. Slashing and crushing and batting away the waves of darkness.

They fought alike, actually. Roche could find traces of the local swordsmanship,this other man having clearly studied the same disciplines, and Sora had then apparently adopted some of this for himself as well. That seemed to be a bit of a pattern, actually. Roche could see that Sora didn't know the impressive woman who fought with her hands and feet that well, but had fought with or beside the ninja and the gunblade wielder (which, wow, a real gunblade? Who were these people?) and Cloud before, because he'd incorporated moves or tactics from them into his own loose style - the way he delivered _this_ upward slash, or how he darted around from one enemy to another and back again to sow chaos. That kind of adaptability was truly impressive.

So it wasn't like Roche no longer found Sora impressive. On the contrary, the whole journey had only heightened his already high opinion of the other boy.

But, well. He wasn't perfect.

"Is there a reason you're following me?"

So what if he got a little...distracted?

"I merely wanted to express my appreciation - I'm the kind who likes to try out a new dance partner every now and then."

Cloud grunted. "Great."

"Isn't it?" Roche sighed. "The way you move, the way you fight," in the same breath Roche tore his blade through a charging knight, as Cloud leapt into the air and came down to thrust his own sword into the earth, creating a shockwave of energy that dispersed a dozen or so creatures of darkness, "sublime."

"Uh huh."

"And that _weapon._ Worn and cracked, yes, but full of character for it, and clearly no less effective. Where did you acquire such a fine piece?"

Cloud's eyes narrowed, and he let out a little hiss of pain, as if thinking about his own sword caused him pain. It was most upsetting for an artisan such as Roche to see, even as he admired the way Cloud deftly cut through his opponents despite his distraction.

"Doesn't matter. A sword's a sword, kid."

"What? One's blade is an extension of one's body, no, your very soul! To say a sword is nothing else..." Cloud swore Roche would have probably stroked his weapon comfortingly if they weren't in the middle of a pitched battle with the forces of darkness.

Wait.

"Why did they stop?"

Cloud had fought plenty of Heartless, weak and strong. There were some variations in how the different types behaved, but he'd never known a large group of them to just freeze in place like this.

"A very good question. Things were just getting good."

Cloud pointedly did not roll his eyes. It would be beneath him. He had gotten very good, however, at silently projecting disdain, which he turned to do now.

And yes, this kid actually was cradling his sword like a baby, because of course he would...be...

"Where did you get that sword?"

Roche stuck his nose up in the air.

"Well, what does it matter? A sword's a sword, right?"

"No, where did you get _that_ sword?"

The kid turned around, because of course _now_ he would choose to do something a normal teenager would do.

(Not that Cloud had the best idea of that himself. His only actual points of reference were Yuffie and Sora. So yeah.)

"I mean it, where - "

Then the Heartless started moving again.

Very, very quickly.

In the swirl of darkness and metal, Cloud lost sight of the younger man. Then, somehow, he swore he saw a lone feather blown by the wind.

It would be a while before he thought of anything else.

* * *

The Gullwings floated above the battlefield. Every now and then they would swoop down and send another Heartless off the side of a cliff, or roll a boulder on top of a group, anything to break up the madness a bit - every little bit helped, right?

"That guy," Rikku said, wide-eyed, "is _not_ doing a little bit."

From their high vantage point, they were able to see the young human get shoved off the side of a cliff.

They were also able to see the same person jab his sword into the rock to slow his descent, then flip over to start running down instead of falling.

Which they all agreed was pretty cool.

What they also agreed was pretty cool, if a little frightening, was the way in which the man hadn't slowed down or stopped when he got to the bottom, but immediately turned his controlled fall into momentum for killing Heartless.

They could just about make out the light glinting off his sword as it cut through swathes of the dark creatures. They could see his hair ("It's good hair," someone muttered) blowing in the wind, but also moving because his head was - more than they would have expected. Was he laughing?

"Something tells me that guy _never_ does a little bit," Paine observed.

"Mmm-hmm."

They continued to stare.

The great thing about this canyon was the acoustics, which once they were all silent, let them know that yes, the man was laughing as the darkness swarmed around him in an attempt to engulf him for all eternity.

"Come on girls," Yuna said, eventually. "Let's get back to work."

"Excuse me!"

The voice came from below, and they floated over to the cliff's edge to see who was speaking.

The same young man they'd been watching was covered in sweat, his face clawed and cut, his clothes not doing much better.

He was smiling.

"Could you kick some more down here, please?"

The Gullwings looked at each other. Well, Rikku and Paine looked at Yuna, who sighed.

"Of course!" She yelled back, "happy to help!"

The young man gave them a thumbs up.

As they floated off in search of more fodder, none of the something-or-others felt the need to actually say it, because it was so patently obvious.

This world was _weird._

* * *

"That is what the Organization...is after."

There were plenty of traits Axel had taken from his original self that came in handy. 'Theatricality' was one of them.

"So what are those guys gonna do with the Hearts?"

"I'm not telling," and being a pain for the sake of it was another one. Sure, he could easily spill the beans on the whole thing, but honestly? Messing with these three just gave him something akin to enjoyment - a big thing, for a Nobody.

"You - you're the one who kidnapped Kairi!"

"Bingo. The name's -"

"Lea?"

Axel froze. Being a Nobody was a funny thing - not 'haha' funny, no, but strange. Basically every Nobody that had held onto their identity acted like they did before they were a Nobody. Something inside them, some primal instinct, told them that to do otherwise would be death. A slow fading away from existence, as they lost all sense of self. So while the lack of a Heart conferred certain advantages - mainly that he could do bad things and not feel bad about them (...mostly), and stopping him from feeling fear (...ish), it's absence actually did surprisingly little sometimes.

For instance, Lea in this situation would absolutely have been struck dumb by the ridiculousness of it. Axel could do no better.

"Lea!"

Standing there, battle-damaged but otherwise unchanged, was Roche. He was, of course, smiling.

"I...Roche?"

"Wak!"

"You know each other?"

"Gawrsh..."

Axel looked back at the peanut gallery, then back at Roche.

This was insane.

What was perhaps more insane was that, when Saïx showed up a second later, Axel was genuinely too perplexed to do what he should have done - that is, portal out of there like his unlife depended on it. Because it did.

Instead, he turned to his former friend, and in a move he would never be able to explain, gestured at their mutual acquaintance.

"Are you seeing this?"

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I understand how rock formations work? Nope.  
> Am I going to answer the Mystery of Zack Fair in the KH universe? Woof, tell me when Nomura does, right?  
> I..one more chapter? One more. Why do I do this to myself?


	6. Chapter 6

"Why?"

Lea was having a pretty good day, all things considered. He would happily claim to find a 'new' way into the castle pretty much every day, but this was probably the first time in a while it had been something other than 'run past those two meatheads out front before they catch us'. Being sneaky - and oh but he _could_ be sneaky - had failed them, and so they had come back around to being so direct and obvious that it, hopefully, came back around to being very subtle.

This had not worked.

So to have a line on a way in that was genuinely like nothing they had ever heard before, that was good. Great, even. Or so Lea thought. Isa, however, was determined to rain on his parade.

"Why what?" Lea answered, determined to sound aloof. He wasn't going to let Isa's negativity cheat them out of the first genuinely new plan they'd had in a while.

Isa looked at him in that flat way that said 'I know what you're trying to do, it's not working, I know you know exactly what I meant and that you can formulate a proper response to it, so if you think I'm going to take your bait and play this stupid game with you at this forsaken hour of the morning, you might want to think twice'.

It was a very powerful look. Seriously, not enough people seemed to recognise how expressive Isa actually _was._

Lea sighed.

"Look," he began, painfully aware that a lot of what he said to Isa began with a defensive 'look', "this guy knows what he's talking about alright? I know he's a bit..."

"He's an idiot," Isa interrupted, and Lea was surprised to find himself offended on the guy's behalf - he'd have been more understanding if Isa had just said 'nuts'. Although the idea that Isa would call anyone 'nuts' when he could say they were stupid was probably not all that true to life.

"Hey, show me your custom combo motorcycle/gaming rig, huh?"

"That thing was legally declared a danger to the safety of anyone even remotely near it."

"Well."

"It was impounded within ten minutes of being finished."

"It didn't get enough of a chance!"

"He drove it over a mountain."

"And lived!"

This was where Lea was actually jealous. Not of being able to build a motorcycle that turned your commute into a life-or-death video game - although, come on, yeah - but the fact that once you started talking about Roche, it would inevitably turn into a conversation about any one of the many, many dangerous stunts he had pulled. Of course, nobody particularly liked the guy, because he was the antithesis of the peace and tranquillity that the Garden embodied. Because those very qualities were things that Roche seemed to actively despise, something even Lea could only partially understand. Roche found their world immensely dull, and was always looking for ways to spice things up. His idea of 'spice' tended to involve ludicrous automobiles, bladed weapons, or what had widely been termed 'abuse' of the concept of virtual reality. This last point was what had brought them to Roche's abode.

"It can't work."

"Hey, no harm in trying, right?"

"Didn't he say he was going to shoot us with a laser?"

"I think it was a beam."

"Lea, they're the same thing."

"Nah."

"Lea."

"I think you're missing the delicate distinctions here, but I understand you're not, y'know, technologically minded like I am."

Isa snorted, which was unfair. Lea _was_ technologically minded, thank you very much. It was part of how he knew Roche personally rather than through gossip - they not only gamed together, but took the same computing courses. Lea had been trying to hack into the castle's systems, or into records about how it was structured, for a while now. This had intrigued his classmate, who was always on the lookout for new challenges. Isa hadn't approved. Had been vehemently not approving of the whole venture, actually. He'd never seemed to care about Roche's antics one way or the other - Lea was even pretty sure he'd found them as amusing as Lea himself did, in his own way. But ever since they'd actually gotten to know the guy, Isa had just gotten more and more closed off towards him. It was weird. What harm was there in getting a bit of help?

"You know. If we get in there with Roche's help, this just becomes another Roche story."

Lea's eye twitched. Okay. There was that.

"He doesn't care about the castle, alright? He just wants to get into their computer system."

"Why?"

* * *

The answer, as it turned out, did not actually impress Isa all that much.

"You want to break into the castle's mainframe so that you can play _video games._ "

Roche sighed, though there was no frustration in it. It was the kind of sigh you heard from the protagonist of a great romance, wistfully pining for their love.

"Think of the processing power! The storage! The _realism."_

Isa looked back at Lea, and Lea again swore that the reason people said Isa was the quieter of the two of them was that they weren't paying enough attention to his face.

"Soooo, this'll help us get into more than just the computers, right?" Lea hefted a length of cable so thick he'd thought it was some sort of python when he'd entered.

Heh. 'Python'. He'd have to write that one down.

"Ah yes, my fiery comrade. This will do more than get us into the computers. It will get us _into_ the computers," Roche's eyes glittered. Like actually sparkled a bit. It was unnerving.

"...okay."

Roche pulled - and Lea would maintain up until his dying day (and technically after that, if you counted the next phase of his non/existence as a sort of 'afterlife') that this was the best description of the thing - a homemade laser cannon soldered onto some sort of dining cart. Isa made some sort of noise, like a dog that had eaten too fast.

"Behold!" Roche shouted, and the way he said it somehow made shouting 'behold!' at the top of your lungs seem like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"That's, uh, yeah," Lea said eloquently.

"If there's one thing I'll give it, it's that it can shut you up," Isa chimed in.

Roche wagged a finger and tutted. "Don't be deceived by appearances, my colour-coordinated friends. It may not be quite the sleek, elegant _beast_ that rests within yonder castle, but the function transcends the form. Observe!"

Roche pressed a button, and the laser cannon thing whirred so ominously there was no doubt in Lea's mind that making that particular sound was an intentional part of its design. It whirred more, and louder, light and electricity pulsing around it.

It fired.

Now, Lea had great reflexes. He'd been training - not 'playing', thank you - with his battle discs (which were not frisbees, _Isa_ ) for some time. So he could have definitely gotten himself out of the way without Isa's help. Help which consisted of shoulder charging him to the floor when the thing fired its beam at him.

"Man, you're heavier than you look."

"Shut up."

"Hmm," Roche mused, "guess it still needs a bit more love."

From their conjoined position on the floor, the boys turned as one to look at Roche, then followed his contemplative gaze to the very-much-burning hole in the wall.

Lea grabbed his discs, which Isa took as cue to get up and assume his own fighting stance.

Roche smiled and pulled, from nowhere they could see, a strange sort of bat with blue foam on it.

"Well," he purred, "I suppose your trip here doesn't have to be a _total_ waste, right?"

* * *

Years later, an unchanged Roche stood across from a pair that was very much different from the two boys he'd known.

"Ah, memories," he sighs, for all that he doesn't appear to have aged a day.

But then Saïx looks at Roche, then turns to Axel, and demonstrates that maybe they still have some things in common with their former selves.

Because the look he gives his former friend says more than he'll ever have time to express in words. But, in essence, could be summed up as -

_Why?_


End file.
